Wednesday, September 17, 2008

New tricks...part 2

My second painting class was last night. Most of the evening was spent in demonstrations, but we did glaze over the small pieces we had done the week before. And I remembered to take my camera! I am taking this class to learn to loosen up. It is an excellent class for that, because we can spend no more than 10 minutes, and preferably half that, on any of these small paintings (they are between 5x7" and 8x10").

So... first, last week we were to paint a pear directly, from start to finish in about 7 minutes. Here's my pear:Then we were to use just burnt sienna, and smear it all over the canvas in a wet glaze, then very quickly, rub out the light areas in both pear and background to 'reveal' a pear shape. We left that to dry all week, and last night we glazed over all of it with yellow, then in the places we wanted darker with blue (both transparent colors). Here are my glazed pears, before and after glazing:I got my pear done so quickly last week that I also did an apple, which I glazed last night, as well:The last thing we did was to do the same procedure with flowers... put down a wet layer, rub it out for the lights, let it dry, then glaze over it last night. Mine were very dark, so the glazing process made them even darker, but here they are:This process is very fun and fast. The person who teaches this class literally does her gallery paintings all in one very quick session. She will often go back and do glazes on top to 'fix' ones she is unsatisfied with. I told her last night that I am a tapestry weaver, and that I paint like a weaver, one bit to completion at a time. She said I must be crazy! Yeah, well, I am a tapestry weaver... aren't 'crazy' and 'tapestry weaver' synonymous? Anyway, I'm not sure how this all will translate to the subjects I want to paint, or to the painting I do to design for weaving tapestries. I can see these small studies as fun small tapestries, though. And, in the meantime, I am having a good bit of messy fun!!!

1 comment:

Anonymous
said...

Friday 9/19/08 7:50am....beautiful little paintings..I took 2 alla prima classes last year and liked the immediacy of not waiting for drying..that teacher has a website if you want it...I had been to the Camden aquarium and painted a giant turtle that swam over our heads in the walkway with water all around....then began a tapestry of it which I am still working on..however I have continued on with my traditional oil painting process classes and consider the alla prima a simple digression..your method of scrubbing out is different tho...almost reminds me of reverse quilting.....how is Wooster doing these days? from Janet way over East

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Contemporary tapestry designer and weaver, oil painter. Unless otherwise attributed, all images are copyrighted and belong to me. Please ask before using or posting them elsewhere.
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I am working towards having all 12 Calendar tapestries, plus the 4 large Seasons tapestries shown together. The timing would be for sometime in 2015. If you know of a venue to suggest that may be interested in showing these pieces together, PLEASE contact me!